Arvec

I think I sum up the feelings of many here when I say this...

holyshitholyshitholyshit!!!

What's going to happen next, Earthbound on the VC?? MADNESS!

That's true, I had forgotten about that. That's a bit more than just a cameo, like most characters. They do at least give you that information, but I agree it wouldn't have been as good without having seen him in the past two games.

Either way, I can't think of any other time where you'd really benefit from playing the others, besides those 'oh, I remember that!' moments. Cool, but never necessary.

I've never bought anything because of the box art - at least not directly. The box art (and title) are the hook that gets me to look at the back of the box. I don't buy anything without looking at the back, unless I already knew what I was getting before I walked into the store. If the box has no game screens, I treat it as a warning to stay away or do more research on the title first. I don't buy a game because it has nice cut scenes - that's what movies are for, imo. This policy hasn't steered me wrong yet.

As far as embarrassing boxart - that's what Amazon is for. No clerks to look at and it comes, discretely, in another box directly to my house. If the boxart is soooo embarrassing that I can't even display it in my house, well, I can always 'lose' the box. I wouldn't be crushed if I had one less box to display - even though I am the type of person who saves all of the original packaging.

None of the Suikoden games have a progressing story; each one can stand alone from each other. There are occasionally references to what happened in the past games (generally mentioning wars that occured in other countries, a few re-occuring characters, and the like) but they're basically nods to people who have played previous games in the series. You wouldn't be missing anything by not having played the previous games.

Sinnix is correct. Basically, the rental shops weren't making enough money, stopped buying the rental licenses, and started buying retail user licenses. Belgium is merely enforcing the law on needing to purchase rental licenses (to rent things? No wai!), and the stores are expressing the impracticality of staying in business due to lower demand.

Amazon and Gamestop show luminous arc 2 coming out on the 18th of November - which agrees with the date posted on the official atlus newsletter. I even just double checked it on the Atlus forums.

Amazon and Gamestop also list Rune Factory 2 with a November 18th release, but I don't recall seeing anything in the newsletter, and search doesn't turn up anything of note on their forums regarding RF2.